Within the framework of Montessori teaching, individualized instruction focuses the child on the concrete. From the concrete manipulative materials, the child learns to abstract information and concepts. These materials allow the child the opportunity for more than one approach to their use in the classroom. Exploration of materials are open ended. The child in the elementary classroom has a “reasoning mind” and therefore, learns not just rote facts and information but “why” and “how”. The child is one being whose physical, cognitive and emotional elements are not separate entities, but interrelated parts of the whole child.
